zaterdag 19 november 2011

On invitation of the Goethe Institut in Minsk and the Belrusian Library Association, I was able to attend the XII international conference “Management of Higher Education Institutions’ Libararies” at the BelarusianStateUniversity from 12th-14th October, 2011.

This year’s theme was “Shaping Information Culture in XXI Century: the Role of University Libraries”. The conference was held with support of UNESCO, the Goethe Institut and the Embassy of the USA in Belarus.

The plenary session on the first conference day started with presentations delivered by Prof. Natalia Gendina (Kemerovo State University ofCulture and Arts), Esther Grassian (University of California College Library) and myself (IZI, Munich). Natalia spoke on “Information culture as means of shaping a creative personality of high school graduates in the XXI century” and explained her concept how to promote and to create a person’s information culture. From her point of view a creative and information literate person should be able to take independent decisions when working with contradictive, heterogeneous, and dynamically changing information.

Esther Grassian gave a comprehensive overview of information literacy standards, resources and best practice in the United States of America. She underlined that the (tight) connection of librarians and teachers is crucial for students’ success.

I presented research results from international youth media studies related to media use and information-seeking behaviour of “digital natives”. I gave some thoughts on how to bridge the gap between the information routines and needs of “digital natives” and the information resources libraries tend to offer. In my opinion, the knowledge and understanding of today’s media landscapes young people inhabit, is the key for the success of library information services.

On the second conference day speakers provided interesting insights in the integration of information resources in Poland and how Russian university libraries are shaping teachers’ information culture. Natalia’s master class on concepts and didactics of promoting information culture in higher education libraries was well attended and received a very positive feedback from the participants. She presented hands-on-materials and gave valuable advice for practitioners on how to promote information culture. Ester Grassian also offered a workshop on the purpose, objectives and expected results of information literacy instruction. At the same time, I had to deliver a speech at the University of Minsk so I was unfortunately not able to attend Esther’s course.

My visit in Minsk ended with a visit of the impressive National Library of Belarus. It is located in a new 72-metre high building in Minsk which has 22 floors and was completed in 2006. The building can seat about 2,000 readers and has a 500-seat conference hall. It is the main information and cultural centre of the country. The collections include 8 million items of various media. In 1993 the National Library started to create its own electronic information resources. It has generated a collection of bibliographic, factual graphic, full-text, graphic, sound, and language databases that comprise more than 2 million records. Library users also have access to databases of other libraries and academic institutions, including foreign ones. The library service is in great demand because more than 90,000 citizens of Belarus are library users. The guided tour ended with a spectacular view from the library’s roof top terrace on the city of Minsk illuminated by night.

Munich, Oct 31, 2011

Heike vom Orde, Head of Documentation IZI

International Central Institute for Youth and Educational Television (IZI)

A group of students meet outside the University for the class breaks and start discussing about information literacy.Will came out with the idea to make a documentary about girls.The conversation turns into an active discussion about the importance of being a critical thinker and how to use the information in an appropriate way.
Have a look at this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udbf4M4YYwE

What: Sheila Webber (Sheffield University Information School) will present the revised version of the SCONUL 7 Pillars of information literacy. Revised copies of the 3D (SL) version of the SCONUL 7
Pillars will be made available. Sheila will also say something about how she uses the 7 Pillars in teaching. The website for the Pillars ishttp://www.sconul.ac.uk/groups/information_literacy/seven_pillars.html

dinsdag 30 augustus 2011

A while ago I posted a request for suggested e-learning sites for information literacy. Thanks to all of you who suggested sites for evaluation.
The ones that came out top were:http://www.library.usyd.edu.au/skills/ University of Sydney, Australiahttp://www.newcastle.edu.au/Resources/Divisions/Academic/Library/information-skills/infoskills/index.html University of Newcastle, Australiahttp://www.le.ac.uk/li/sources/training/irs/irscontents.htm University of Leicester, United Kingdomhttp://skills.library.leeds.ac.uk/ University of Leeds, United Kingdomhttps://pilot.library.qut.edu.au/index.jsp Queensland University of Technology, Australiahttp://www.open.ac.uk/safari/ Open University, United Kingdom
Sites were evaluated in terms of their coverage of information literacy (identifying information needs; understanding the information landscape; locating and retrieving information, using information (including managing (storage, security, retention), sharing and communicating information); plus look & feel; interactivity; functionality embedded e.g. use of quizzes etc. 70 Higher Education (HE) sites and 7 from the workplace, were identified and screened, 30 were evaluated in-depth.
There are good examples of practice that are not included in the list shown above. This was because they did well in some areas but were lacking in others.
Very few were identified from the non HE workplace and those that were identified, in many cases, were inaccessible due to ID/password restrictions.
Very few e-learning packages helped people with thinking skills， such as critical analysis, synthesis etc. of information found in articles, Web pages, books etc. or navigating and extracting information efficiently
In general, there was a lack of coverage of 'using' information i.e. managing information, sharing or communicating information.
I will provide further detail, in due course, on my blog, which I intend to rekindle ... after a long lapse in updating ! )
Thanks again for your suggestions.
Regards,
Mark

vrijdag 26 augustus 2011

InfoLit-L, the IFLA Information Literacy Section Discussion List had 358 subscriber today. The aim of this list is to provide a forum to the international library and educational community to discuss and share information literacy ideas, documents, and experiences.InfoLit-L is a closed list (restricted to subscribers).When I announced the start of the IL blog today, there was only 1 subscriber that ‘could not be reached at that address’. Very disciplined subscribers. They ‘unsubscribe’ when applicable. If you want to subscribe go to: http://infoserv.inist.fr/wwsympa.fcgi/info/infolit-l

This is the start of the blog of the IFLA Information Literacy Section. It replaces the 'Newsletter' of the section. This way we can react more timely on events that are relevant for our section. I hope to read a lot of them. I thank all the coordinators that has supplied us with newsletters so far.